Fillers

Please, where can I find a needy motorway? I have stuff to get rid of, and there is landfill, and then there is landfill (to build roads, or so Hilary McKay has been saying for far too long about her own wonderful books). The latter strikes me as the much more sensible option, if there’s nothing else you can do with your unwanted books.

And when I say unwanted, I am not referring to Hilary’s work, nor am I suggesting that the unwantedness stems from the Resident IT Consultant so much. They just happen to be his books. Most of the ones from the back row on the double rows of books. They are unwanted by me. And looking at them, I am shocked ‘we’ ever wanted/bought/kept them at all.

But now that he has been a very good Resident IT Consultant and cleared them out (when I say that, I mean onto the floor in the front room), they need to go a little bit further. Where to, though? The Grandmother was consulted, in case Oxfam could pass them on, but she felt they were beyond even that.

They are not allowed in the paper and cardboard recycling bin our local council has provided. As far as I have been able to find out, there is nowhere to take them. Except to the general hole in the ground for all general things that don’t fit the description of any recycling category at all.

I suspect books are something you are not meant to have very many of. Meaning you will have no problem giving them a comfortable forever home, and books are sacred and Can’t Possibly Be Got Rid Of! Hence the lack of a recycling category for them.

Now that I have had them declared unsacred, I will have to get them out of the house quickly (if only so I can use that bit of floor to pack, reorganise or dispose of other belongings), and the only way appears to stick them in the boot of the car and point it at the local tip. But that makes me feel sick.

I am the proud owner of two sets of the same – Swedish – encyclopaedia (one here, one there…) and neither is especially useful in this age of Google. The ‘one there’ can remain for the time being. But the ‘one here’ will have to go. Presumably also into a hole in the ground. And not of the new motorway variety, either.

(Perhaps… no, probably not. You can build houses out of straw. And stuff. The ideal thing would be to build a new house out of books.)

13 responses to “Fillers”

Have been through the same procedure, the same emotions – it is sacrilege to throw a book away. I think you should give all of them to a charity shop. These usually have book sorters nowadays, and they can make the decision as to what to throw. Some of those hardbacks could end up making a pound or two for charity. Or even end up in the “collectibles” at £5 or more. Never say die to a book.

I’m not sure the world is ready to worship how-to manuals for obsolete versions of Windows at the more unfashionable end of IT. Yet. The day will come, but by then the charity shops have probably also passed the books on to some great skip in the sky.
The Grandmother has – apparently – come back saying her Oxfam gets a little money for the books sent to be killed. I mean pulped. Shredded.
Killed.
Let’s settle for slaughter. We will have to inquire when the local shop next sentences their books.

I wondered about that Sally. Can just see myself struggling for hours (while ‘neighbours’ chuck everything into landfill with little thought) and possibly failing to get anywhere, or chopping bits of me off along with covers.
Have you got any good weapons? I mean, tools?

‘s too late! He’s gone and taken the books. But plenty more where they came from.
The cost of buying a new house with enough space to store books you don’t want or need and that no one else will want, for the next 30 years (hopefully, touch wood, and all that) is insane.

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